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SkepticBlog is a collaboration among some of the most recognized names in promoting science, critical thinking, and skepticism. Regular bloggers include: Brian Dunning, Daniel Loxton, Donald Prothero, Mark Edward, Michael Shermer, and Steven Novella. This site is hosted by the Skeptics Society.

The comment itself is fairly typical – it is nothing more than a few logical fallacies. The commenter starts with some ad hominems, asserting that my post is biased and emotional. They provide no evidence or argument to support this assertion. And of course they don’t even attempt to counter any of the arguments I laid out. They then follow up with an argument from authority – he can link to a PhD creationist – so there.

The article that the commenter links to is by Henry M. Morris, founder for the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) – a young-earth creationist organization. Morris was (he died in 2006 following a stroke) a PhD – in civil engineering. This point is irrelevant to his actual arguments. I bring it up only to put the commenter’s argument from authority into perspective. No disrespect to engineers – but they are not biologists. They have no expertise relevant to the question of evolution – no more than my MD. So let’s stick to the arguments themselves.

The article by Morris is an overview of so-called Creation Science, of which Morris was a major architect. The arguments he presents are all old creationist canards, long deconstructed by scientists. In fact I address many of them in my original refutation. Creationists generally are not very original – they recycle old arguments endlessly, regardless of how many times they have been destroyed.

Morris also makes heavy use of the “taking a quote out of context” strategy favored by creationists. His quotes are often from secondary sources and are incomplete. A more scholarly (i.e. intellectually honest) approach would be to cite actual evidence to support a point. If you are going to cite an authority, then make sure the quote is relevant, in context, and complete. And even better, cite a number of sources to show that the opinion is representative. Rather we get single, partial, and often outdated quotes without context.

Evolution is happening now

Morris separates his article into sections, the first entitled: Evolution is not happening now. Here he repeats the “kinds” argument I already dealt with (nature is not, it turns out, cleanly divided into “kinds”, which have no operational definition). He also repeats this canard:

Such variation is often called microevolution, and these minor horizontal (or downward) changes occur fairly often, but such changes are not true “vertical” evolution.

This is the microevolution/macroevolution false dichotomy. It is only “often called” this by creationists – not by actual evolutionary scientists. There is no theoretical or empirical division between macro and micro evolution. There is just evolution, which can result in the full spectrum of change from minor tweaks to major changes.

But Morris does commit another error here – again demonstrating that creationist arguments against evolution are almost entirely premised on their factual misinformation or their own conceptual misunderstanding of the science. Morris wonders why there are no “dats” – dog-cat transitional species. He misses the hierarchical nature of evolution. As evolution proceeds, and creatures develop a greater and greater evolutionary history behind them, they increasingly are committed to their body plan. This results in a nestled hierarchy of groups – which is reflected in taxonomy (the naming scheme of living things).

So once our distant ancestors developed the basic body plan of chordates, they were committed to that body plan. Subsequent evolution resulted in variations on that plan, each of which then developed further variations, etc. But evolution cannot go backward, undo evolutionary changes and then proceed down a different path. Once an evolutionary line has developed into a dog, evolution can produce variations on the dog, but it cannot go backwards and produce a cat.

Stephen J. Gould described this distinction as the difference between disparity and diversity. Disparity (the degree of morphological difference) actually decreases over evolutionary time, as lineages go extinct and the surviving lineages are committed to fewer and fewer basic body plans. Meanwhile, diversity (the number of variations on a body plan) within groups tends to increase over time.

In other words – the kind of evolutionary changes that were happening in the past, when species were relatively undifferentiated (compared to contemporary species) is indeed not happening today. Modern multi-cellular life has 600 million years of evolutionary history constraining their future evolution – which was not true of species at the base of the evolutionary tree. But modern species are indeed still evolving.

Next Morris tries to convince the reader that there is no evidence for evolution in the past, focusing on the fossil record. He repeats the false claim (again, which I already dealt with) that there are no transitional fossils:

Even those who believe in rapid evolution recognize that a considerable number of generations would be required for one distinct “kind” to evolve into another more complex kind. There ought, therefore, to be a considerable number of true transitional structures preserved in the fossils — after all, there are billions of non-transitional structures there! But (with the exception of a few very doubtful creatures such as the controversial feathered dinosaurs and the alleged walking whales), they are not there.

Much of what follows (as you can see it takes far more space to correct the lies and distortions of Morris than it did to create them) is classic denialism – misinterpreting the state of the science, and confusing lack of information about the details of evolution with lack of confidence in the fact of evolution. Here are some examples – he quotes Niles Eldridge:

“It is a simple ineluctable truth that virtually all members of a biota remain basically stable, with minor fluctuations, throughout their durations. . . .“

So how do evolutionists arrive at their evolutionary trees from fossils of organisms which didn’t change during their durations?

Beware the “….” – that means that meaningful parts of the quote are being omitted. I happen to have the book (The Pattern of Evolution) from which Morris mined that particular quote. Here’s the rest of it:

(Remember, by “biota” we mean the commonly preserved plants and animals of a particular geological interval, which occupy regions often as large as Roger Tory Peterson’s “eastern” region of North American birds.) And when these systems change – when the older species disappear, and new ones take their place – the change happens relatively abruptly and in lockstep fashion.”

Eldridge was one of the authors (with Gould) of punctuated equilibrium theory. This states that, if you look at the fossil record, what we see are species emerging, persisting with little change for a while, and then disappearing from the fossil record. They theorize that most species most of the time are at equilibrium with their environment, and so do not change much. But these periods of equilibrium are punctuated by disequilibrium – periods of change when species will have to migrate, evolve, or go extinct.

This does not mean that speciation does not take place. And if you look at the fossil record we see a pattern of descendant species emerging from ancestor species over time – in a nice evolutionary pattern. Morris gives a complete misrepresentation of Eldridge’s point – once again we see intellectual dishonesty in his methods of an astounding degree. His other points are all similar.

The Genetic Evidence

Morris next tackles the genetic evidence, writing:

More often is the argument used that similar DNA structures in two different organisms proves common evolutionary ancestry.

Neither argument is valid. There is no reason whatever why the Creator could not or would not use the same type of genetic code based on DNA for all His created life forms. This is evidence for intelligent design and creation, not evolution.

The genetic evidence is an overwhelming home-run for evolution. As good as the fossil evidence is, the genetic evidence is much better. Here is an excellent summary of the multiple lines of molecular evidence for evolution. Basically, if we look at the sequence of DNA, the variations in trinucleotide codes for amino acids, and amino acids for proteins, and transposons within DNA we see a pattern that can only be explained by evolution (or a mischievous god who chose, for some reason, to make life look exactly as if it had evolved – a non-falsifiable notion).

Here is one example. The genetic code is essentially comprised of four letters (ACGT for DNA), and every triplet of three letters equates to a specific amino acid. There are 64 (4^3) possible three letter combinations, and 20 amino acids. A few combinations are used for housekeeping, like a code to indicate where a gene stops, but the rest code for amino acids. There are more combinations than amino acids, so most amino acids are coded for by multiple combinations. This means that a mutation that results in a one-letter change might alter from one code for a particular amino acid to another code for the same amino acid. This is called a silent mutation because it does not result in any change in the resulting protein.

It also means that there are very many possible codes for any individual protein. The question is – which codes out of the gazillions of possible codes do we find for each type of protein in different species. If each “kind” were created separately there would not need to be any relationship. Each kind could have it’s own variation, or they could all be identical if they were essentially copied (plus any mutations accruing since creation, which would be minimal). But if life evolved then we would expect that the exact sequence of DNA code would be similar in related species, but progressively different (through silent mutations) over evolutionary time.

This is precisely what we find – in every protein we have examined. This pattern is necessary if evolution were true. It cannot be explained by random chance (the probability is absurdly tiny – essentially zero). And it makes no sense from a creationist perspective. This same pattern (a branching hierarchy) emerges when we look at amino acid substitutions in proteins and other aspects of the genetic code.

Further, the picture of the relationship among species that emerges from genetic analysis matches nicely with the morphological and fossil evidence.

Because these lines of reconstructing the evolutionary past are imperfect and incomplete, they do not match precisely in every instance. They match well-enough that they are consistent with evolution, but get progressively fuzzy at finer and finer levels of detail. This is pretty much what we would expect. But Morris uses the denialist tactic of using fuzziness at the fine levels of detail to call into question the big picture (again by taking quotes out of context).

Morris does not seem to grasp the actual science. Instead he just quote mines for snippets that seem to support the conclusion he has already formed.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics? Really?

Yes, Morris goes for the second law of thermodynamics again – in the exact way that I already addressed. He responds to scientists correctly pointing out that the Earth is an open system, by writing:

This naive response to the entropy law is typical of evolutionary dissimulation. While it is true that local order can increase in an open system if certain conditions are met, the fact is that evolution does not meet those conditions. Simply saying that the earth is open to the energy from the sun says nothing about how that raw solar heat is converted into increased complexity in any system, open or closed.

The fact is that the best known and most fundamental equation of thermodynamics says that the influx of heat into an open system will increase the entropy of that system, not decrease it. All known cases of decreased entropy (or increased organization) in open systems involve a guiding program of some sort and one or more energy conversion mechanisms.

Energy has to be transformed into a usable form in order to do the work necessary to decrease entropy. That’s right. That work is done by life. Plants take solar energy (again – I’m not sure what “raw solar heat” means) and convert it into food. That food fuels the processes of life, which include development and reproduction. Evolution emerges from those processes- therefore the conditions that Morris speaks of are met.

But Morris next makes a very confused argument:

Evolution has neither of these. Mutations are not “organizing” mechanisms, but disorganizing (in accord with the second law). They are commonly harmful, sometimes neutral, but never beneficial (at least as far as observed mutations are concerned). Natural selection cannot generate order, but can only “sieve out” the disorganizing mutations presented to it, thereby conserving the existing order, but never generating new order.

The notion that evolution (as if it’s a thing) needs to use energy is hopelessly confused. Evolution is a process that emerges from the system of life – and life certainly can use solar energy to decrease its entropy, and by extension the entropy of the biosphere.

Morris slips into what is often presented as an information argument. (Yet again – already dealt with. The pattern here is that we are seeing a shuffling around of the same tired creationists arguments.) It is first not true that most mutations are harmful. Many are silent, and many of those that are not silent are not harmful. They may be neutral, they may be a mixed blessing, and their relative benefit vs harm is likely to be situational. They may be fatal. And they also may be simply beneficial.

But mutations are not “disorganizing” – that does not even make sense. It seems to be based on a purely creationist notion that species are in some privileged perfect state, and any mutation can only take them farther from that perfection. For those who actually understand biology, life is a kluge of compromises and variation. Mutations are mostly lateral moves from one chaotic state to another. They are not directional.

But they do provide raw material, variation, for natural selection. Natural selection cannot generate variation, but it can select among that variation to provide differential survival. This is an old game played by creationists – mutations are not selective, and natural selection is not creative (does not increase variation). These are true but irrelevant, because mutations increase variation and information, and selection is a creative force that results in the differential survival of better adapted variation.

And all of this has absolutely nothing to do with the thermodynamic argument – it’s a giant misdirection.

Evolution is Science

Morris finishes with a long rambling argument that evolution is religion.

Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion — a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality . . . . Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.

Morris ties evolution to atheism, which, he argues, makes it a religion. This assumes, of course, that atheism is a religion. That depends on how you define atheism and how you define religion – but it is mostly wrong. Atheism is a lack of belief in one particular supernatural claim – that does not qualify it as a religion.

Nor is acceptance of evolution equal to lack of belief in god or the supernatural. There are many scientists who accept evolution who also have faith (like Kenneth Miller).

Morris is confusing (he did that a lot) philosophical naturalism with methodological naturalism. Science requires methodological naturalism. The methods of science can only work within a framework of testable cause and effect. The supernatural cannot be falsified (because it functions like magic) and so is incompatible with science. This is not a choice, it’s not a belief, it’s not religion – it is a logical imperative of the methods of science. Practitioners of science are free to believe whatever they want, but the methods of science must follow methodological naturalism.

Morris also fails to recognize that his argument would apply to all of science, not just evolution. But it doesn’t matter because his entire argument fails from faulty premises and logic.

Conclusion

The point of Morris’s diatribe is to convince his readers that evolution is an atheist conspiracy, not a legitimate science. Unfortunately, for his target audience – his form of misdirection, misinformation, and slippery logic is effective.

I found nothing new in his article, which was comprised entirely of recycled creationist arguments that have long been demolished by careful examination.

51 Responses to “A Creationist Challenge”

Love it. I had this page on text to speech on low volume at work. One by one, we all huddled around the computer until we ran it over the network. Then we ran it again for those who missed out and wanted to listen from the very beginning.

Quote – But evolution cannot go backward, undo evolutionary changes and then proceed down a different path.

Why not ?
Evolution is random, why can’t the next change be an undoing of a previous change ? It is highly unlikely, but not impossible.
And if it happened in the past, we would not be able to tell, because dating bones and fossils is not that accurate.

Scientists like to pretend that the world is orderly and has laws. It doesn’t. Most of it is random occurrences that just happen to lead to where we are today.

Aya – It’s not just highly unlikely, it is statistically impossible. The number of changes that would have to occur in order to revert to a specific prior state is too great to occur by chance. Even if there were selective pressures pushing in that direction, there are so many other paths to follow that you would still not end up in the same place.

There are so-called back-mutations – but I am not talking about the reversal of one or even a few genetic changes. I am talking about the commitment to a basic body plan. Birds are not going to evolve back into reptiles.

Another concept here I did not address is that species vary in terms of how generalized vs specialized they are. Generalized species tend to serve a sources of further speciation. Whereas highly specialized species (think peacock) are slated for extinction. Specialists do not tend to evolve back into generalists. They may move forward (again – think birds) into a new type of generalist, exploiting a new basic survival strategy, but they don’t go backwards.

While I appreciate the huge amount of effort you put into writing this blog post, I fear that the audience who would most benefit from it — I.e., the people who don’t understand evolution and are swayed by non-scientic arguments against it — will simply turn a deaf ear (or, more accurately, a closed mind) to the facts and logical, science-based arguments you have presented. These people believe what they do because of FAITH and how can we, as thinking, reasoning people, put up a defense against that? We can present facts and valid arguments based on scientific arguments all day long, but what is that against a Bible-waving fanatic who spends his free time commenting on blogs like this one, getting us to waste our time generating new arguments to set them straight? They won’t listen.

I think a better use of our time would be to promote science-based education in our school systems, to help young people and those who are unsure of the facts — real skeptics — understand how evolution works. Leave the Bible thumpers to wallow in their own silly beliefs. There is no hope for them. Concentrate on the folks who CAN grasp the facts and form their own conclusions based on real evidence.

I guess what bugs me is how much time we waste trying to convince them of reality. Let’s spend our time in more productive efforts.

Maria – the point of this post and posts like it is not to convince true believers. Rather, it is to:
– better inform skeptics and the scientifically open-minded
– serve as a teaching moment in logic and critical thinking
– provide information to those on the fence

We also do reach the occasional believer, but this is admittedly uncommon.

Yup, I enjoy Novella’s posts on evolution (that, and conspiracy theories). For me, it’s easier to see when people are using bad science and/or bad reasoning in his rebuttal when discussing these topics.

Regarding the notion that no new species have been created in recorded history; Take all the Chihuahuas and Great Danes in the world and put them to one side. Next kill off all the rest of the dogs in the world and you’re left with two separate species of dog, unable to interbreed.
Of course it’s just a thought experiment I’d ever want to see conducted, it’s just to show that the differences between species is due to the lack of extinct internediates.

I’m guessing the Great Dane would be the mother. A very, easy going, lying on the floor, most of the day, mother. The Chihuahua would have to be fearless, a silent like a ninja, and quick, like a frat. boy. ;-) I kid, I was a 4th gen. legacy Phi Delt.

Not exactly! Not collecting stamps generally means not thinking about them and not arguing against collecting stamps etc. But for some reason atheists can’t stop themselves from prosletyzing their “non-belief”. They live and breath argueing against religion and are in fact religious in their zeal.

CountryGirl – you’re stereotyping. I am an atheist, and I have no desire to proselytize my non-belief. Arguing religion takes up less than 1% of my time and energy. I feel there are more important things to do than be an annoying douche.

I am argueing that anyone who does not believe in religion or god would ignore those who do and have little interest in discussing it with them. The only purpose in the arguement is to bully and demean. People like this cannot help themselves in their anti-religious/religious zeal they go searching for potential converts to prosletyze to. So simply admit you are a bully who likes poking their finger in the eye of religious people and you will have no arguement or complaint from me. I don’t think you can be that honest, that ethical.

“I am argueing that anyone who does not believe in religion or god would ignore those who do and have little interest in discussing it with them. The only purpose in the arguement is to bully and demean”

I respectfully disagree. There are many purposes to explaining ones position.
Atheists need to defend their position. Case in point, the school boards around the country trying to force non-science ( Intelligent Design) into the science class room.
Atheists need to speak out when wrongs are committed. Case in point, the Catholic church as an institution conspired to protect pedophile priests.
Atheists need to speak up to express their opinions. You don’t seem to have a problem with religions proselytizing, so why shouldn’t atheists be vocal about their beliefs.
There are many religious people who like to talk and argue about religion. Why can’t atheists?

I feel you have a 2 dimensional opinion of atheists. We’re people too. Don’t be prejudiced against atheists.

I am so sorry SocraticGadfly. I had no idea your self esteem was so fragile that you would be offended by a comment directed towards someone else. Or is it that you just cannot resist the temptation to get into the fray. Me thinks thou dost protest too much. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most anti-religious bigot of us all?

You are forgetting that in that analogy, all the stamp collectors are insisting that everyone trat stamps as if they belong in a collection. I just use stamps to send mail. I don’t collect them in books, or keep them in any sort of order. But all the stamp collectors out there insist that I have to get th book, and little wax envelopes to store my stamps in.

Or to put it in real terms that you may understand, until the day comes when abrahamistic religions don’t dictate public policy such as defining marriage by their rules, or insist that their answers are the ones that should be taught in school, those of us who don’t adhere to that dogma must fight against the injustices the religious perpetrate in the name of their religion.

I only initiate religious conversations with other non-believers,because it is usually pointless to engage believers.The few times that I have debated religion with believers,it is because they were approaching me,trying to get me to convert.I am guessing that this is a common scenario.
Being too quiet about our non-belief is a bigger problem than any imagined anti-god proselytizing.Look around.Religion is everywhere,in schools,politics,billboards,television (multiple channels dedicated ONLY to religion),libraries,movies,churches on every other corner,and you have the audacity to complain about a HANDFUL of outspoken atheists! Please!

One can imagine unlikely but not impossible circumstances under which a more catlike dog could evolve; if cats were all killed by some virus, and their niche was vacant for a long time, etc.; but that catlike dog would by no means be an example of evolution running backward, and would certainly not possess the distinctive feline genome not matter how much like a cat it eventually was. Water doesn’t run uphill, and evolution doesn’t run backwards.

Country Girl: Too general. Many atheists such as myself have no special interest in superstition, either past or present, and rarely bother arguing with believers, because no common intellectual framework is shared – hence, pointless jabbering.

It’s not only sad but also unbelievable how high this arguments are getting in the US, I mean there is more and more people following this creationist train of thought, and is invading even academic circles, for instance there is a video on TED in which an economist spend almost 20 minutes talking about how we should not listen to experts, specially physicians and her best argument is that they as any expert make mistakes and thats enough to stop listening to them.
Some argue that she is just stating that you should not follow blindly to them, but you don’t need that amount of time to state such a simple phrase, she uses the same tactics as creationists by taking out of context quotes and statistics; I know TED is a place for discussing ideas and not science but a lot of the people commenting the video where apparently well educated and yet eager to pray to this lady and her anti-science tinted talk.
The talk is given by Noreena Hertz.

I’ll have to see the video. Not all experts are equal. Expert homeopaths and astrologers are full of crap. Television pundits, or talking heads, generally can’t predict political or economic trends much better than non-experts. Physicians know the medical guidelines, but they aren’t scientists.

“Some argue that she is just stating that you should not follow blindly to them…”

That was her conclusion:
“Now, more than ever, is not the time to be blindly following, blindly accepting, blindly trusting. Now is the time to face the world with eyes wide open, yes using experts to help us figure things out for sure — I don’t want to completely do myself out of a job here — but being aware of their limitations, and of course, also our own.”

Good conclusion, except of course, her talk wasn’t about our own limitations. She said, “Studies show that doctors misdiagnose 4 times out of 10,” but how does that compare with self-diagnosis? Her theme of rebelling against the experts plays into the hands of denialists and doubt mongers.

Yeah Max trust me that kind of conclusion was the one that any adults actually practice on a day to day basis (except for religious kind of thinking), but if the talk would have been called “be aware of false experts” then I’ll be on her side, but she deliberately take statistics from the past and extrapolate them to the present, you can see how she takes on the medical profession probably because of bad experiences, but c’mon stating that medicine considered homosexuality as a disease until the 70’s while failing to acknowledge that society till this day has not followed that idea is a pretty biased statement. If she would only read the dictionary definition of expert then she would not confuse self proclaimed ones (homeopaths, gurus and so on) from real experts….for me this is the kind of people that begins anti-vaccines or anti-condoms movements, just because they “believe” something even against evidence.

The dictionary definition counts homeopaths as experts because they have special knowledge and skills in homeopathy.

The problem with Hertz is that she didn’t distinguish between different types of experts. It’s pretty clear that she focuses on economics because she’s an economist, and on medicine because of bad personal experiences.

She starts off by arguing that we trust experts too much, citing some brain imaging study, but neglects the big gap between the scientific consensus and the public view of Evolution, Global Warming, Heliocentrism, etc.
Being a liberal, Hertz would be dismayed that her attitude that “Someone has to stand up to experts” echoes Creationist Don McLeroy.

Probably my problem is that my view of the talk is that she points out many cases in which experts opinions (this is according to her, since none of the statistics are related to any specific source, which in itself doesn’t make them false just out of context) have failed and therefore their view shouldn’t have so high value, and that’s the reason why I related to this topic, with creationist having their own theories and then looking up “facts” that prove them right while disregarding anything that proves them wrong….but I see your point and I agree with you, I just got suspicious when she used contradictory facts like flat lines coming out of an MRI test, because EEG is required to get lines and only with coma or brain death they can be flat, even heavily sedated you would get spikes on those lines.

Thanks for the reference, Mario. That video (the talk by Noreena Hertz) was infuriating. I just posted the following comment on its page. I admit that it (my comment) is rather one-sided, but there was a strain of new-age smarminess in her talk that really annoyed me:

This talk is an appalling exercise in muddying the waters. Hertz retails a mixture of pleasing bromides (experts make errors (shocking!); experts should explain things so that non-experts can understand them (wow, great idea!)) and bold-sounding obscurantisms (we need to shift paradigms! expertise needs to be democratized!). She goes on and on about “experts” without saying one word about what the term actually means. The meaning implied by her use of the word is that an expert is the holder of a certain social standing, such as a title, an academic degree, or a particular job. There is no suggestion in her talk that it has anything to do with the actual possession of expertise, that is, authoritative knowledge of a specific subject or practice. By leaving expertise itself out of her conception of what makes an “expert,” Hertz has deprived the term of its essential meaning, which is epistemological, and given it a purely sociological one. Delusion, bias, and error take the place of knowledge in her conception of the expert.

“But just imagine that we were to junk this notion of expertise as some sort of élite cadre and instead embrace the notion of democratized expertise, whereby expertise is not just the preserve of surgeons and CEOs but also shopgirls.”

That’s right. Instead of letting the science taught in our public schools be determined by the consensus among scientists, we should take opinion polls among the parents about the scientific validity of evolutionary biology as compared with, say, “creation science.” –Don’t try to tell me that this sort of idiocy is not what Hertz means: whether she would accept such an implication is beside the point. The point is that such idiocy follows from her declared view.

Yeah for me she is just one of those that claim to be in favor of science when in reality they’re not, they are more like intelligent design advocates, they attack real experts but follow self or media proclaimed experts and gurus.
Like I said if her real message is to be alway cautious and to not follow blindly well sorry but you don’t need a 20 minutes talk to state that, cause everyone pretty much does that already (they just shutdown reason when it comes to religion) and she is be the best example of her own talk….Just like every engineer needs that every bystander give them ideas about the construction of a bridge.

I have a quotation that will make you laugh. This is from a Christian evangelistic book published in the 1970s.

The authors are critical of six-day creationism, but suggest that “the reader may find it useful to make his own assessment of the books by those trained scientists who advocate the view.” In a footnote, they add: “Some of the non-scientist advocates of the view produce appaling hotch-potches of scientific half truths, ‘common sense’, theological dogmatism, and attempts to blame evolution for most of the social evils of the century. The best of the works by modern scientists known to us are:” followed by a short list, ending with (and here comes the punchline) “The Twilight of Evolution by H. Morris (a Professor of Engineering). The Evolution Protest Movement and the Creation Research Society of America also produce some interesting material.“

I have to ask a rhetorical question. Who in all of skepticism is more informed and more able to make a sound logical argument from an informed position than Steve Novella? This has to be one of the most comprehensive and well-formed blogs I have read. When I need to argue for evolution, I’ll be coming back to this blog.

Well, I see nothing to get all up in arms about. Evelution is not the mantra of the Atheist, though I can see they have hijacked it at times as if it were – not all that disimilar to Christian hijacking of some science data to prove creation.

This problem I often find and I have many people ask this of me, how does the skep[tic handle the fact there are more Christians that do follow evelotionary principles and standpoint than do not. This is not so much an argument for religion but more an argument for tighter identifiers for those trying to promote creationist views where logic dictates they are misguided.

I am a Christian, though with the term there will be automatic judgements, opinions and arguements created without any further descrition offered by me. I happen to follow science in a manner some Atheist do, and even with the exact same outcomes. I know my history, in a number of fields, religious and no religious; though if you do understand history well, you will know there is not history where religion of some sort was not common practice.

So, please understand the problem I may have with the generalization of religion, where it is the exactness of evolution that is being put on display. You either use generalizations for everything or you do remain exact throughout.

As there are many ignorant Christian (and other religious types) there are equally non religious (I avoid the general atheist term as not all non religious are atheist)dullards who claim revealing knowledge. This has been the case since the early days of art and creation of icon and talsimans. Creationists are simply moving backwards in time and ignoring even the basic evidence of Neolithic evidence, let alone going further back.

The early Christians did not believe they and the world wad created by a God and they possibly never even considered the idea of creation anyway. The biblical story, taken as word of mouth for a few thousand years was like all stories of the times, mtaphorical in nature. Religions formed around the original ideals and then twisted everything based on trade, war and even developing racism. This is what Creationists hark back to – a period about 5000 years ago. The actual God aspect is much older.

Though I dispute nothing shown here, and in fact agree with everything and some, as all my Christian friends would (not Christian means follower of Jesus, not follower of any version of stupidity some people want to believe) have no issue whatsoever with evolutionary evidence.

Physical evolution may still be ongoing but eveolution in DNA shows massive changes already in the makeup of humans and other animals… the presence of man made chemical compounds are now part of DNA profiles. Yes evolution is still in progress, but I cringe a little when I see it might not be the progress we really want.

Good work by the way… I must deal with Creationist often and it is hard work; likewise I also deal with hard nosed atheists which is even harder.

Well, I see nothing to get all up in arms about. Evelution is not the mantra of the Atheist, though I can see they have hijacked it at times as if it were – not all that disimilar to Christian hijacking of some science data to prove creation.

>Atheists in general, have not “hijacked” evolution. Evolution is denied by certain religious people (Creationists), as they feel it contradicts their beliefs, and as such, they begin the argument. It is exceptionally rare that someone would use the chain: Evolution > No god. That would be madness.

This problem I often find and I have many people ask this of me, how does the skep[tic handle the fact there are more Christians that do follow evelotionary principles and standpoint than do not. This is not so much an argument for religion but more an argument for tighter identifiers for those trying to promote creationist views where logic dictates they are misguided.

>This is not a fact that needs handling. Some Christians accept a well known scientific theory. Religion really has nothing to do with this, though you seem to have “hijacked” evolution to show that your religion is rational. ie, Accept Evolution+Christian>Religion is ok. That’s the only conclusion, deny it or not. Tighter identifiers exist: Creationist is the identifier.

I am a Christian, though with the term there will be automatic judgements, opinions and arguements created without any further descrition offered by me. I happen to follow science in a manner some Atheist do, and even with the exact same outcomes. I know my history, in a number of fields, religious and no religious; though if you do understand history well, you will know there is not history where religion of some sort was not common practice.

>Strawman. I haven’t made any judgements, bar that you are a person who agrees with some Christian doctrine. There’s hundreds of those, and I’m not going to guess which one for your amusement. Unstated Major Premise is a fallacy. You follow science like an Atheist? False Dichotomy. Most people “Follow” science. As you said, most religious people accept science. There’s nothing atheistic about it.
Arguement from Antiquity. Just because religion has almost always been there, does not make it any more valid.

So, please understand the problem I may have with the generalization of religion, where it is the exactness of evolution that is being put on display. You either use generalizations for everything or you do remain exact throughout.

>You haven’t specified your beliefs, so any generalizations are your problem. There are many different beliefs and sects, and it is easier to debate one, or another. If something does not apply to you, it does not make it a Strawman unless they are arguing against you specifically. It is the fault of the religous, that religions are so speciated, and by arguing that they never counter your precise views, you move the Goalposts.
Evolution is rather exact. It has few “Generalisations”, since the overall structure is known. Creation and religion too, are known. Give a specific one, it will be debated. Also, as the post was a rebuttal TO A SPECIFIC ARGUMENT, it is NOT a Strawman, as you keep trying to imply. And this “Generalisation against Exact” thing you’ve used is actually an arbitrary rule-you should deal in facts, not increase the error of one side to accomadate the other.

As there are many ignorant Christian (and other religious types) there are equally non religious (I avoid the general atheist term as not all non religious are atheist)dullards who claim revealing knowledge. This has been the case since the early days of art and creation of icon and talsimans. Creationists are simply moving backwards in time and ignoring even the basic evidence of Neolithic evidence, let alone going further back.

>Of course there are. So? Also, why did you call the Christians ignorant, but the non-religious Dullards? That’s not a fair portrayl, and it’s an attempt to poison the well. Who’s talking about “Revealing knowledge”? You made this point up, AND it’s a Generalisation of everyone else AND it’s a Strawman. The next sentence is nonsense, trying to make yourself sound like a historian.

The early Christians did not believe they and the world wad created by a God and they possibly never even considered the idea of creation anyway. The biblical story, taken as word of mouth for a few thousand years was like all stories of the times, mtaphorical in nature. Religions formed around the original ideals and then twisted everything based on trade, war and even developing racism. This is what Creationists hark back to – a period about 5000 years ago. The actual God aspect is much older.

>Source. And, who do you mean by Christians? The followers of the living Jesus Christ, in his lifetime? The followers of Paul, or other Apostles? The followers of the Bible? You’ve generalised again. The majority of people would fall into the Bible category. In which case, you’re factually incorrect. The book has creation, so they considered it.
No, all stories of the times were not metaphorical in nature. This is clearly wrong, and if you want to play the metaphor card, then I’ll have to point something out to you: Your beliefs are entirely metaphorical, and Jesus may not have been divine, and there may not be a God, and this may be a metaphorical fairy tale. So your beliefs are irrational, pointless, and a simple bit of education for those living in the Bronze Age. From what I can make out, you’re implying that Creationism is new Religion, whilst God is older, hence better? That’s an Argument from Antiquity, which is just silly.

Though I dispute nothing shown here, and in fact agree with everything and some, as all my Christian friends would (not Christian means follower of Jesus, not follower of any version of stupidity some people want to believe) have no issue whatsoever with evolutionary evidence.

>Good. They’ve some sense then.

Physical evolution may still be ongoing but eveolution in DNA shows massive changes already in the makeup of humans and other animals… the presence of man made chemical compounds are now part of DNA profiles. Yes evolution is still in progress, but I cringe a little when I see it might not be the progress we really want.

>What are you on about? Physical evolution is a result of evolution in DNA. You clearly don’t understand evolution after all. Also: You can’t see human evolution. No, really, you can’t. You’d be dead first. Evolution takes place over generations. You can only see a small amount of those at a time. And I doubt you’re measuring their entire physical traits and comparing them empirically.

Good work by the way… I must deal with Creationist often and it is hard work; likewise I also deal with hard nosed atheists which is even harder.

>Good to know. But the “Hard Nosed Atheists” being harder to deal with is a bit odd-in which way are they harder to deal with, and how is this related to evolution denial?

Peace can never be reached. Two mutually contradictory viewpoints on a factual matter can not be reconciled-one is right, and one is wrong. You think there is a God, and I think that there is no good evidence for a God, and belief in him is irrational. Peace can’t be had here: You can accept my view, or you can provide me with evidence, and destroy any rational version of my view.

My comment is somewhat off topic, but pertains to trying to change the thinking of people who have total faith in the bible. As you may know, there are people who believe that May 21, 2011 will be the “judgement day” as proscribed by the bible. I have approached several of people that hold signs proclaiming such near where I work. I ask them a couple of questions:

First, are you willing to sell me all of your property for one cent on the dollar with an effective date of May 22, 2011?

Second, will you completely renounce your belief in the bible and a diety if you are still alive on this planet on May 22, 2011?

So far I have no takers for either question.

No matter how compelling the evidence, there are those people who will not or cannot accept science in place of a religious view that has been indoctrinated in them for all of their years.